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I recently had a weird issue: some random dude sent me $1.xx over PayPal. Naturally I refunded it and thought matter closed. Then, some days later I got 3 more

by yumraj 5y ago

I recently had a weird issue: some random dude sent me $1.xx over PayPal. Naturally I refunded it and thought matter closed. Then, some days later I got 3 more payments in similar $1.xx amounts. I refunded 2, but for the 3rd one PayPal wanted to charge some fees. At which point I just blocked the dude. No idea if this was a genuine mistake or a scam. Anyone knows??

sushid 5y ago
Not sure but I think what they want is for you to pay them $1.xx back (rather than refund). Then they can try and initiate a refund on their end, which allows them to pocket the amount you gave them for free.
bluedino 5y ago
I've had things for sale and then buyer sends the money, then wants me to ship to some foreign country, always a pain in the ass to refund them
hamiltonians 5y ago
THey are probbly checking to see if it is active.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  I used to deal with some online merchant facilities. I used to see loads of $1.xx charges on clients that were not careful with their merchant details.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
I once panicked that someone was getting ready to withdraw funds from my account because I saw those two <$1.00 auth charges. I called my bank, and they panicked, and immediately created a new account, moved the money into it, and closed the other one. Like within 5 minutes. Turns out I forgot I told a friend to reimburse me for beers we had a few weeks before that, and his payment service was verifying my account. Online banking and all of this digital access to my monies makes me nervous as heck. Double-edged sword. (Yes, I have 2TF hard tokens on all major accounts.)
- niij 5y ago
  Those are called micro deposits and are only used to verify ownership of an account you own. Your friend was incorrectly setting up an external transfer account via ACH. Next time they should use a check, zelle, etc etc.
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    Yes, I know that. I said so.
x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
I saw the same thing with Venmo. Someone was sending money to someone else in smallish amounts $25>. But it was being labeled as me so I would get emails of "You sent $20 to SomeBody". I told Venmo, they didn't seem to care, but I was curious about how their scheme worked. I ended up creating a Trash rule for such emails.
MattGaiser 5y ago
They want you to pay it back rather than refunding perhaps?
nlh 5y ago
I had a similarly weird thing happen to me with an even weirder outcome: I was in the Dominican Republic last year and I got a notification that someone had sent me $100 via CashApp. It wasn't a person I recognized, she looked clearly Dominican in her photo, and I presumed it was a similar sort of scam. (I assumed someone saw I had whatever "send to someone nearby" setting turned on, saw I was a foreigner, and decided to try for an easy mark). I didn't refund it, I didn't cancel it - I just did nothing. And you know what happened? Absolutely nothing. I waited for the phone call asking me to send the charge back. Nada. I waited for a text explaining it was a mistake. Nada. It was over a year ago and I still have the $100. So.....maybe it was an actual, genuine mistake?

by yumraj 5y ago

sushid 5y ago

Not sure but I think what they want is for you to pay them $1.xx back (rather than refund). Then they can try and initiate a refund on their end, which allows them to pocket the amount you gave them for free.

bluedino 5y ago

I've had things for sale and then buyer sends the money, then wants me to ship to some foreign country, always a pain in the ass to refund them

hamiltonians 5y ago

THey are probbly checking to see if it is active.

2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
I used to deal with some online merchant facilities. I used to see loads of $1.xx charges on clients that were not careful with their merchant details.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

I once panicked that someone was getting ready to withdraw funds from my account because I saw those two <$1.00 auth charges. I called my bank, and they panicked, and immediately created a new account, moved the money into it, and closed the other one. Like within 5 minutes. Turns out I forgot I told a friend to reimburse me for beers we had a few weeks before that, and his payment service was verifying my account. Online banking and all of this digital access to my monies makes me nervous as heck. Double-edged sword. (Yes, I have 2TF hard tokens on all major accounts.)

niij 5y ago
Those are called micro deposits and are only used to verify ownership of an account you own. Your friend was incorrectly setting up an external transfer account via ACH. Next time they should use a check, zelle, etc etc.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  Yes, I know that. I said so.

x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago

I saw the same thing with Venmo. Someone was sending money to someone else in smallish amounts $25>. But it was being labeled as me so I would get emails of "You sent $20 to SomeBody". I told Venmo, they didn't seem to care, but I was curious about how their scheme worked. I ended up creating a Trash rule for such emails.

MattGaiser 5y ago

They want you to pay it back rather than refunding perhaps?

nlh 5y ago

I had a similarly weird thing happen to me with an even weirder outcome: I was in the Dominican Republic last year and I got a notification that someone had sent me $100 via CashApp. It wasn't a person I recognized, she looked clearly Dominican in her photo, and I presumed it was a similar sort of scam. (I assumed someone saw I had whatever "send to someone nearby" setting turned on, saw I was a foreigner, and decided to try for an easy mark). I didn't refund it, I didn't cancel it - I just did nothing. And you know what happened? Absolutely nothing. I waited for the phone call asking me to send the charge back. Nada. I waited for a text explaining it was a mistake. Nada. It was over a year ago and I still have the $100. So.....maybe it was an actual, genuine mistake?